


Glaukopis, Zosteria

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Athena - CircusP & CrusherP (Song), Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3893512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riona's task is simple enough, or at any rate she's memorized how to do it. The trouble is getting up the nerve to actually <em>do</em> it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glaukopis, Zosteria

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



> Riona: _ree_ -na. Aine: _awn_ -ya.

Still time to turn around, Riona thought; still time to run away, to (bravely) run away. Her beat-up Toyota kept on in the same northerly direction it'd been going, because Newton's laws of motion, apparently; the closer she got to downtown, the louder her anxiety screamed that she couldn't do this, wouldn't do this, didn't dare do this.

"It's just a little public speaking," Riona muttered to herself. "Get with it, _Catriona_." She deliberately mispronounced her own name the way Professor Takayama always had, with the O loud and clear instead of properly silent. Riona'd survived Takayama's communication class, which involved a weekly public speech; she could survive this.

Granted she'd had Mary Aine's coaching, and this time she didn't, she never would again—

No, no, no, she would faint at the mic, or vomit, or slur her words all together so that no one could understand her, all while shaking like an earthquake—she couldn't possibly appear calm and collected and professional, and she needed to sound all of the above, politics was about appearance more than reality after all, and lives were at stake—

Right onto the avenue with the library, left into the parking lot the library and post office shared. Legislative Hall was two minutes' walk from the library, and today of all days parking any closer would be impossible. Riona parked the car, turned off the engine, and sat there.

I can't do this, she thought, then repeated it aloud: "I can't do this."

This was the moment. Now or never.

Riona tilted the rearview mirror down to check her makeup, especially the blue eyeshadow over her bright gray eyes—it wasn't exactly woad, and the woad war paint of the Celts might be a myth anyway (she wasn't sure), but it was a sort of armor all the same—

Wait. Gray eyes?

Riona's eyes were blue. They always had been.

"All right, Lady, now what?" Riona muttered, and immediately regretted it: neither flippancy nor sullenness was _ever_ the right approach to a goddess. Even a goddess with a personal interest in one.

_You know what._

"Yes ma'am." It was, after all, why she'd come. "Simple plan. Walk in to Legislative Hall, join the line of people waiting to opinionate at the state legislature about repealing the death penalty or not, recite my little speech, walk out. I think I forgot when making this plan that I am _not_ a good public speaker!"

_My sister informs me that your sister thinks you'll do fine._

—personal assurance from the goddess of wisdom that the Queen of the Dead (it had to be her; none of the Lady's other sisters could possibly know of Mary Aine) knew Riona's name. Great. Could the day get any better.

_You will not die today. This is not that sort of battlefield._

Funny sort of battlefield, where a victory meant no one would die at all, not even Mary Aine's murderer—

Mary Aine would be right here beside Riona, if she could be: riding shotgun, commenting on the trees blooming white and pink, cracking awful jokes to ease Riona's tension. _Did you hear the one about the haunted elevator? It was a great story; it really lifted my spirits._

...right.

Riona looked away from the mirror, unable to bear the look in those gentle gray eyes. I can't do this, she thought desperately; I can't do this, I'm not the one you want—

_You are my sword. I am your shield._

Stunningly logical argument, that.

But anxiety, strong as chains, bound her down; the thought of opening the car door skittered away from her and she couldn't move to chase it—her pulse pounded in her veins, breath shaky, palms damp—

_I am with you._

Much good that did when Riona couldn't get out of the car to go do the thing that the Lady wanted, that Mary Aine would want, that Riona herself wanted on days when the pain of her sister's absence was aching instead of sharp—

Help me, please, Lady, thought Riona fiercely; I'll do what you ask of me if only you help me do it—

(Once there was an Athenian on a sea voyage, and a storm sank the ship, and the Athenian prayed fervently and loudly for his patron to rescue him; another passenger, swimming past, told him "while you pray to Athena, start moving your arms!" The moral, Aesop tells us, is that the gods help those who help themselves.)

Riona raised her hand to the keys still in the ignition, whether to turn the engine back on or to remove the keys she didn't know. She didn't know. She didn't know if she could do this; in fact she knew very well she could not do this, why on earth had she come in the first place—

Hyperventilating. Bad. Deep inhale. Long exhale. Deep inhale, long exhale, and yank the keys out of the ignition.

 _hrrr, hrrr, hrrr,_ called a bird somewhere near: a literal sound, heard with her physical ears, startling her out of the panic. Turn her head as she might, she couldn't see the bird without getting out of the car.

She also couldn't do what the Lady was asking of her without getting out of the car, and then several more procedural steps before so much as getting in to Legislative Hall. One step at a time, and Riona reached for the door handle and pushed the car door open.

The owl perched on the post office roof, looking down at Riona. It _hrrr_ ed again and flapped off south.

Riona grabbed her purse out of the shotgun seat, straightened up, and squared her shoulders. "I am brave," she muttered. "I am bold. I am a goddamn mortal goddess and I will _conquer_."

_Don't forget eloquent._

The speeches Riona wrote had a tendency to be excellent blog posts, not so much excellent speeches, but okay, she'd roll with that.

Riona shut and locked the car, tucked her keys in her purse, and started walking south towards Legislative Hall, beginning to mentally recite her memorized speech about why this relation of a murder victim thought the death penalty wasn't appropriate punishment for any crime even if it _would_ be viciously satisfying to watch her sister's murderer choke on his last breath.

If this state kept the death penalty on the books against the Lady's wishes, it wouldn't be for lack of Riona trying.

The owl soared above in blessing.


End file.
